Thank you, Adam; I very much appreciate the kind words. (And please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I knew you before this exchange. I’d heard Caroline mention your name, and now I see you knew both her and SBF well and worked at FTX yourself, eg per this article. I appreciate you speaking up all the more.)
And, I hope this doesn’t undercut you, but I’ll try to explain what Oli may have meant, context that you might be missing. 4 years ago, I wrote in support of SBF shortly after the FTX collapse; more recently, I spoke on a podcast about my controversial views on SBF and FTX. I think some people may have rounded this off to “Austin condones fraud, or at least, is permissive of fraud for a greater good”. (Certainly, my appetite for working with Caroline and others like Ross and Nishad and Joel, might lead people to conflate these.)
But, I don’t condone fraud. I try pretty hard to be honest and open, and also to bake transparency into my actions. I desperately hope that, in the position of the FTX inner circle, I would have had the courage to speak up. (I worry that in some ways, my disposition is too agreeable/conflict-averse). I think about this partly because Manifund has some similarities to FTX and Future Fund: we’re custodians of people’s money and trust, and operate from a similar startup-y, move fast, do-good-for-the-world mentality. And so, it feels optically (but also, truly) important that I draw the right lessons from FTX’s collapse. But also, not the wrong ones.
I’ll admit that for a while, I clung on to some hope that SBF was actually right about his claims: that emergency funding was coming if not for bankruptcy; that creditors could have been repaid in-kind; that the estate then punted a generational portfolio. I read these things with the interest of a conspiracy fanboy, and I think Oli and others noticed. I’ve since updated downward on SBF’s claims being true (partly after talking to Caroline), maybe from 50% ⇒ 10%; and maybe it just doesn’t matter if those claims were true, given how things played out. I apologize for the soldier-y way I persisted.
Maybe the disagreement with the rationalists like Oli and Elizabeth comes from how we value truthseeking. (Meanwhile, the EAs are mad at me for optics-y reasons, I believe). While important and admirable, I wouldn’t choose “truthseeking” as my highest value, per the podcast.
Perhaps neither Lightcone nor idk CG express my core values as well as Future Fund did. For instance, I’ve never seriously considered leaving my job to work at Lightcone or CG, but considered it for the Future Fund (and volunteered for them for a week). I’ve tried, like 2-3 times now, to write about what the Future Fund got right, and maybe when all this is over I will finally publish that piece. In lieu of that, a DM I’ve previously sent:
A lot of my/Manifund’s current strategy and thinking is “Future Fund did the right things for a money-rich ecosystem (but, fraud bad). Now that we’re money-rich again, seems good to do Future Fund things”
The main pieces of their approach that seemed good to me fwiw: regranting, moving money quickly, working with a small sharp team, openness to individuals & for-profits, transparency
Yup, don’t think we’ve met. But Caroline’s told me about you. From what she’s said and what writing I’ve read of yours, you seem great.
It does sound like there’s a lot of history here that I didn’t know about and context I was missing. Thanks for explaining it to me.
Still, the original sentence I was reacting to seems clear that it was the act of hiring Caroline he was talking about, so I think I still stand by the substance of my original comment.
Thank you, Adam; I very much appreciate the kind words. (And please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I knew you before this exchange. I’d heard Caroline mention your name, and now I see you knew both her and SBF well and worked at FTX yourself, eg per this article. I appreciate you speaking up all the more.)
And, I hope this doesn’t undercut you, but I’ll try to explain what Oli may have meant, context that you might be missing. 4 years ago, I wrote in support of SBF shortly after the FTX collapse; more recently, I spoke on a podcast about my controversial views on SBF and FTX. I think some people may have rounded this off to “Austin condones fraud, or at least, is permissive of fraud for a greater good”. (Certainly, my appetite for working with Caroline and others like Ross and Nishad and Joel, might lead people to conflate these.)
But, I don’t condone fraud. I try pretty hard to be honest and open, and also to bake transparency into my actions. I desperately hope that, in the position of the FTX inner circle, I would have had the courage to speak up. (I worry that in some ways, my disposition is too agreeable/conflict-averse). I think about this partly because Manifund has some similarities to FTX and Future Fund: we’re custodians of people’s money and trust, and operate from a similar startup-y, move fast, do-good-for-the-world mentality. And so, it feels optically (but also, truly) important that I draw the right lessons from FTX’s collapse. But also, not the wrong ones.
I’ll admit that for a while, I clung on to some hope that SBF was actually right about his claims: that emergency funding was coming if not for bankruptcy; that creditors could have been repaid in-kind; that the estate then punted a generational portfolio. I read these things with the interest of a conspiracy fanboy, and I think Oli and others noticed. I’ve since updated downward on SBF’s claims being true (partly after talking to Caroline), maybe from 50% ⇒ 10%; and maybe it just doesn’t matter if those claims were true, given how things played out. I apologize for the soldier-y way I persisted.
Maybe the disagreement with the rationalists like Oli and Elizabeth comes from how we value truthseeking. (Meanwhile, the EAs are mad at me for optics-y reasons, I believe). While important and admirable, I wouldn’t choose “truthseeking” as my highest value, per the podcast.
Perhaps neither Lightcone nor idk CG express my core values as well as Future Fund did. For instance, I’ve never seriously considered leaving my job to work at Lightcone or CG, but considered it for the Future Fund (and volunteered for them for a week). I’ve tried, like 2-3 times now, to write about what the Future Fund got right, and maybe when all this is over I will finally publish that piece. In lieu of that, a DM I’ve previously sent:
Yup, don’t think we’ve met. But Caroline’s told me about you. From what she’s said and what writing I’ve read of yours, you seem great.
It does sound like there’s a lot of history here that I didn’t know about and context I was missing. Thanks for explaining it to me.
Still, the original sentence I was reacting to seems clear that it was the act of hiring Caroline he was talking about, so I think I still stand by the substance of my original comment.
Oops, I didn’t see this before my response to Adam, which covers a lot of the same ground.